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Why the North Star House must be restored:
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North Star House qualifies both as a state and national historic architectural landmark (see justification for historic status document)
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Designed by Julia Morgan (famous architect).
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Built for the Foote family (famous family). Mary Hallock Foote was a famous writer and illustrator. Arthur de Windt Foote (her husband) was the manager of the North Star Mine and is credited with many engineering innovations in the mining industry.
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Extensive photographic history recorded by the Foote family of the house and life in and around the gold mines of California -- critical historic resource that should not be lost to future generations.
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Historic preservation is a key to an area's tourist draw and economic growth.
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Critical link to gold rush era history - as significant as the Empire Mine.
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Important historical properties serve as a draw for tourism, which increase jobs and revenue flow to local businesses/community.
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Well-established principle that restoration of historic sites creates long-term business/jobs for the entire community.
Historical Context
The North Star House and it's surrounding buildings and ruins meets the California Office of Historic Preservation criteria for historic designation:
1. Designed for note-worthy clients.
2. Designed by a historically important architect.
3. Representing a significant era in local history.
From Sara Holmes Boutelle's book "Julia
Morgan Architect," Published by Abbeville Press Publishers, New York, 1995
The North Star House was designed in 1905 by Julia Morgan for Arthur deWindt Foote, manager of the North Star Mine from 1895 to 1913, and his wife, Mary Hallock Foote, a noted 19th century author and illustrator. Morgan had begun her career as California's first female licensed architect in 1904 with an office in San Francisco.
One of Morgan's first significant domestic commissions in the (Arts and Crafts) style was a house built in 1905 for Arthur de Windt Foote, manager of the North Star Mine in the gold country near Grass Valley. The Foote house is one of a series in which Morgan worked out ways to integrate geometric forms and simple local materials into a sense of natural wholeness that is as fresh after eighty years as it was during construction.
Julia Morgan's career lasted until her retirement in 1951 and included the design and construction of over 700 buildings, including the W.R. Hearst properties of San Simeon in San Luis Obispo County and Wyntoon near Mt. Shasta, Asilomar in Pacific Grove, and numerous buildings on the campus of U.C. Berkeley.
The North Star House was built of local materials, including the very rocks of the mine itself. "Tracks were laid from the old North Star mill to the site so waste rock could be hauled in an ore car to be used as part of the building material."
The other building on the North Star site include the Hague House, built for the owners of the mine, the Assay Office and Gardener's Cottage. The North Star Cottage, which was destroyed in a legal practice burn in the spring of 2000, had been designed by San Francisco architect Willis Polk and had served as the mine manager's residence from it's construction in the 1880's to the building of the Julia Morgan house in 1905. The remains of the stamp mill illustrate the significant size of the workings and influence of the North Star Mine in the economic history of Nevada County.
Copyright
2000, A.B. Foote Collection, All Rights Reserved.
A. D. Foote was an innovative mining engineer who was responsible for the successful design and construction of the 30-foot Pelton wheel, the largest of it's kind in the world at the time of construction, still standing at the North Star Mine Museum which is owned and operated by the City of Grass Valley. Under Foote's management, the North Star Mine became one of the most productive gold mines in California and his management policies earned helped to earn the mines of Nevada County a reputation as "a model of peace and good will between employer and employee".
In her pamphlet, A history of the North Star Mines: Grass Valley, California 1851-1929, Marian Conway describes at length the custom of Christmas carols sung by the Cornish miners of the North Star Mine. This custom had been started in the late 1890's when the afternoon shift met the morning shift around the Stockbridge Shaft on Massachusetts Hill on Christmas Eve. The men were treated to beer and soft drinks and they all joined in singing Christmas Carols. Then on Christmas morning a group would arrive at the Foote household to sing and they would be invited in for cake, coffee and beer. The custom of gift giving continued until the North Star Company was no longer making a profit.
Needless to say, Grass Valley's Cornish Christmas festival and the music of the Cornish Choir are direct descendents of Arthur and Mary Foote's hospitality. Mary Hallock Foote was the author of sixteen novels and numerous short stories, which she illustrated herself as well as producing wood-cut illustrations for the works of other authors. Her short stories and serialized novels appeared in "Harper's Weekly", "Scribner's Monthly", later the "Century" magazine and were widely read in the late nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth century. Despite being born and raised in New York state, "...the West laid a claim on Mary Hallock Foote. Everything she wrote included descriptive passages about the land and the effects of the vast workings of nature on men and women." The Footes lived in the North Star House for 25 years and many of Mary Hallock Foote's later novels and stories were written there. Their son, Arthur Burling Foote, who succeeded his father as superintendent of the North Star Mine, raised his family in the house and many of their descendents live in Nevada County at the present time.
Additional Reference Materials
Letter of support for the project from the State
Office of Historic Preservation (California)
Letter of
support for the project from Linda Cole, Director Tallac
Historic Site.
Slide
presentation made to the Nevada County Board of Supervisors (note: this
is a large file, only download if you have a broadband internet connection)
Paper written by
Evelyn Foote Gardiner about living and growing up in the North Star
House.
History and Relevant Dates (based in
interviews with Foote family members)